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Crystalsmith Kangor Card Review

I honestly expected something bigger, potentially with Mech synergy. But I’m always interested to see cheap Legendaries, from the design standpoint. They’re really hard to make interesting – on the one hand, you want the effect to be cool and strong, but on the other, you can’t make it too impactful, since it would be overpowered if you could drop it very early in the game. This is a great example of a well-designed cheap Legendary – okay body, can be dropped on the curve, the effect is strong, but it’s not very impactful early in the game and it can scale well into the late game.

The problem I have with this card is that it simply doesn’t fit into many decks right now. If it was a Mech, I would see it being played in Mech Paladin just for the body – 2 mana 1/2 with Lifesteal and Divine Shield is comparable to cards such as Shielded Minibot (trades 1 Attack for Lifesteal) or Annoy-o-Tron (trades Taunt for Lifesteal). But no Mech tag makes it significantly weaker, because you won’t be able to synergize it with Magnetic cards.

The effect itself is really powerful on a 2 mana body, but only in the right deck and in the right scenario. First, you need a deck that actually heals. While doubling the Lifesteal of this card is cool, it’s not really enough. You probably want to run it in a Control-ish Paladin with other healing cards. The sad thing is that lots of them, such as Forbidden Healing, have rotated out with Year of the Raven, so there aren’t many thrilling options (more might get printed). It synergizes really well with Uther of the Ebon Blade too – doubles the weapon healing from 5 to 10. Now, onto the right scenario. Doubling the healing is relevant only when you’re pretty low on health. If you have 20 health and you aren’t under any threat of dying, then doubling healing is a bit pointless. You want to double it against Aggro, where every point of health matters, as well as against combo decks, but only the kind that can’t OTK you.

I feel like it’s one of those effects that are strong in vacuum, but might just not be very useful in the actual in-game decks and scenarios. Right now, I’d say that if anything, the card will be played for its body, and the effect will be a nice addition that can come handy sometimes. Like, you wouldn’t mind pulling it out from Call to Arms, it has 1 Attack so it can get drawn by Crystology, 1/2 body with Divine Shield ain’t that bad to drop on T2 against Aggro, it can be useful in Corpsetaker deck. Because of the effect, the Lifesteal on him will double, so he will usually heal for 4 (although healing on Turn 2 is sometimes irrelevant, because you might be at full health anyway). It’s a solid card overall, and has a potential to become very powerful in the right deck and in the right meta.

Are you for real? The Quest Paladin is stronger then ever because it got so much good buffs. I do not say Quest Paladin is strong but it is the strongest so far. With the bellring and also Vicious Scalehide.

Oakheart with this is actually pretty interesting. Oakheart pulls Kangor, Benevolent Djinn, and Blackguard. Healing you for 6 and dealing 6 to a random enemy minion, while also giving you a pretty powerful board state all for 9 mana.

For some reason someone in the designing team keeps pushing some garbage divine shield taunt bs cards like this in the paladin pool.
Its funny how a class with cards like Tirion , Tarim , Equality , Steed has only some stupid aggro deck close to tier 1.. Really paladin needs more combo cards.It fails both in combo and contol.The dk is useless compared to guldan jaina and malfurion and practically every other dk or hero.

I hit Legend with OTK Paly this month, not really sure what its missing lol… Zola/Ancient Brewmasters = play all four Horsemen for 8 Mana. With Pixie they can’t leave 1 Horse up when you have 1 in hand… The only thing is it lacks consistent clear because Call to Arms can pull double Pyro, but with the new 2 mana draw 2 and more healing you can drop Call to Arms and improve consistancy, still being able to draw through your deck just as easily. I’d keep the radar on OTK Paly next season….

Congrats on hitting legend with it! I knew it wasn’t completely dead, but hitting legend with it is quite a performance. You can’t tell me Beardo didn’t hurt. On the other hand, yes, you’re right, it got some support now with draw and semi-clear/stall card, so it should get better.
What I wanted to say is, that I don’t think they will support the Uther win condition directly, in a way that Beardo did, again.

Bartimaeus

July 27, 2018 at 7:36 am

Ok, two things.
This site is unassociated with Blizzard. The only way anyone at Blizzard is going to see anything you post here is if they purposefully go over to this site to check out comments. Which brings me to my second point.
Do you really think that people want to see these kinds of comments or will pay attention to their content when you include insults? If I worked for Blizzard, I know I sure wouldn’t. Therefore, these comments just end up being obnoxious. If you think something should be changed, explain it reasonably, calmly, and without insults towards either Blizzard employees or their games.

Oh, I have no association with Blizzard whatsoever. But surely you have better things to do than this. I know I do, so this will be my last post on this thread no matter what else you post. I hope you will genuinely rethink your current actions, and goodbye.

Its ok dont worry about this guy when it comes to true leaders making the world and hearthstone a better place, LUL well think again there are none. Only cowards are left never fighting for whats right or give excuses to never improve. The good guy is always the bad guy you know this man. Just let blizzard keep putting out below average products and then tell them how great they are. They know they can keep doing this because 99% of the people are like you. Any type of critism about blizzard are auto the bad guys, when in reality these so called bad guys are the only ones who want hearthstone to be in a more better, realistic place, they just dont go about how YOU LIKE IT.

This card would be great for Control Paladin if Death Knights didn’t exist. Maybe in a Midrange list that doesn’t run Call to Arms? Right now I think it’s eh but could work after CtA and the DKs rotate.

I was expecting the paladin legendary minion to be a mech, and if it were it probably would’ve of been extremely powerful. That isn’t to say it isn’t powerful now, it’s a bit like Wickerflame Burnbristle, I think with all of the boundary pushing cards designs shown so far in The Boomsday Project, this could have also been a mech.

For what the card is though, it can easily be comboed with some healing midrange/ control Paladin would want to play, and being able to heal for four with a Truesilver Champion swing for next to nothing is amazing. Perhaps it’s cheap and sticky enough to see play across all Paladin archetypes, but they would need to play more healing than just Truesilver Champion.

I like cheap legendaries that are just slightly above rate. This does add for divine shield synergies as well. And plays well with the Glass Knight. In Wild Paladin can curve the one drop taunt divine shield, into this, into Wickerflame Burnbristle, into the Glass Knight, into the Bolvar legendary?

This reminds me of Arcane Artificer: 1/2 stats that you’ll prefer to drop later in the game to get value and health. Arcane Artificer is better as it gives you armor instead of health, but on the other hand this minion is stickier thanks to Divine Shield, and if the opponent has to trade into it, it also gives you 4 extra health. Plus, it grants Divine Shield and Lifesteal to Corpsetaker, and can be tutored with Withchwood Piper or Countess Ashmore. Like Arcane Artificer, your opponent SHOULD prioritise removing it, since otherwise you’ll be getting a ton of value. I think it’s a great tool vs Aggro and can provide a huge swing if you have a Truesilver Champion equipped or you can also swing a Chillblade Champion with BoK on top of it. Will probably be an essential tool in Control Paladin, if the deck makes it into the meta, and I believe it will at some point in the next year and a half. Paladin already has some nice value tools with Valanyr, Lynessa and Spikeridged Steed, and a win condition with the DK Hero, it’s just that in general Aggro Paladins are better and other classes do the Control job better, but I do believe in Control Paladin, so any improvements on it are very welcome! 2.5/5 stars.

Oh no not a gain. I mean it was just the previous expansion gen was the OP paladin deck. STOP IT. Why does every one of the paladin legendaries must be a even. STOP WATCHING cripps 35 legendary deck lists. Don;t make it work.

Have you even played on ladder or at least seen ladder gameplay since the call to arms nerf? Genn paladin is very rare, everyone plays Baku paladin now. Also, this card has terrible stats tempowise, so I’m not sure why you’re complaining about an aggro deck running this. I don’t see how this card is cancerous at all, paladins have never struggled with healing before and now the control tools paladin has in standard have a better chance of seeing play.

This card alone is not enough to make a healadin viable. Paladin will need more support for this to make it a thing. It also won’t work well against an otk deck, for which there is a lot of potential. Healadin relies on healing, and if not taking damage, then you can’t heal…

I recently put up a Midrange Heal Paladin list that has been doing OK. I agree on the taking damage part, that has been my biggest issue so far. Paladin has a decent number of tools to make the deck work as is, but yeah a bit more support would be nice and this is a step in the right direction I suppose!

For some reason, every time I open the page to this card’s discussion, I’m logged out. It doesn’t happen with any other card, but this is why I have to comment like this.

Anyways, There’s some merit to comparing this to Shielded Minibot, which was insane. For the cost of 1 attack and the mech tag, you get Lifesteal and double healing. This could be an important tool in the Paladin’s toolbelt should the meta get to aggressive, but there’s a pretty big difference between one and two attack, which is why this won’t see as much general use as minibot did. Even Paladin probably won’t even run it, since they have beefier two drops they want to use.

Even Control Pally (very weak right now, even given that it’s a control meta) doesn’t care much for this card; it just doesn’t have much of a board impact compared to what control pally wants to be dropping.

Gonna go 1/5 on this one. I just get a feeling that it’s a little bit under the mark/doesn’t do quite the right thing to make it relevant, especially in this meta. If the meta gets super aggressive and control pally returns, they’ll probably use this, but even if the meta gets super aggressive, I seriously doubt Control Pally will be a thing, though in said case Even Pally may tech it in, in which case I’ll go with 3/5 in that scenario.

its one of those legendaries that give you an extra edge of a OP minion with a twist. Statwise it way not be worth the legendary tag but it is sticky and the doubled healing is a Qnique lifesaver. On the other hand in standart it is the best boddy to upgrade. it can stick for a turn it has lifesteal already. it is a 2 drop so if you are first you have the edge over baku. And this card will be required for consistency for the paladin mech decks.

Shielded Minibot could easily value trade into the common 3/2 and 2/2 twodrops that ran around at that time while leaving a 2/2 body with mech tag behind which often required another card to take care of it.
This doesn’t beat other 2drops as easily.

Honestly, this card is kind of disappointing for a Paladin legendary. While its effects do look relatively fair for its mana cost, it doesn’t offer much beyond doubling healing. In Priest, this card would be incredibly powerful, if not outright broken. However, as a Paladin card, there are a limited number of healing synergies to play. Especially if Odd Paladin remains a powerful deck in the Boomsday meta, Kangor just doesn’t have a standard-competitive deck to fit into at the moment. (Should be immensely fun with a casual Healadin deck, though!) The meta will determine its usage, but I predict that it will be either part of a fringe Healadin deck or largely forgotten about.

Control Paladin is nowhere NEAR competitive with other control decks right now, and even if it was, raw healing is meaningless against Big Spell Mage, Shudderwock Shaman, etc. The cards released for Paladin so far also haven’t been pushing control at all apart from this. Not too excited, honestly. There’s a world where this is good, and it’s cool that it can be tutored with their new draw spell/Witchwood Piper/Call to Arms/etc, but…still not excited. Healdin hasn’t been good once in the history of Hearthstone.

I’m surprised they never implemented a counter-play to shudderwock considering how straight forward it is to play and how nicely it curves out. Basically, you can’t play control right now because of shudderwock.

Isn’t this the reason for nerfing some cards that actually required a strategy to play like otk worgen in warrior or patron warrior? If the shaman plays shudder the only way they lose is if they get bad rng, otherwise it’s game.

I agree! Quest Rogue was nerfed (several times) because it was too oppressive against the control archetype. Imo Shudderwock Shaman is in the exact same spot in the meta right now. True control decks are just being slaughtered, which is also why something like healing Pally probably won’t be competitive.

Against aggro/tempo decks sure, but against control?, there is not a single control deck that can beat shudderwock. Maybe only kingsbane rogue if you are able to burn something good with vanish but that requires your opponent to make missplays in regards of board.

1. The meta right now is the most control-centric in the history of hearthstone. Even Warlock and various Control Druids are the best decks. Recruit/Deathrattle Hunter and Big Spell Mage aren’t far behind.

2. Shudderwock is considered to be one of the most skill-testing meta decks right now.

3. There have been tools such as Demonic Project that hard counter Shudderwock.

Paladin has a ton of healing in its utility belt. It’s got more healing than most classes in general, I’d say. Truesilver Champion, Lay on Hands, Uther Ebon Blade, Benevolent Djinn, etc. Even looking back at cards that have rotated out, we see stuff like Ragnaros Lightlord and Forbidden Healing.

Not all of them. Truesilver Champion is always a solid card. It may not always be in a Paladin deck, but it’s never a bad option. And Exoida Paladin was absolutely a thing, and Uther Ebon Blade was a staple in that deck. And it’s not impossible that another Pally deck comes out that uses Ebon Blade. Like, if Control Pally makes a comeback.